Tides Change
by lovelyinherbones
Summary: It's been a long time coming...the message is clear. Post Season 4, one shot.


_A painfully fluffy one-shot, post season four. Enjoy, and please review! :)_

You were exhausted, overworked, and swollen, but you were also stubborn and determined to finish the project you had started.

You'd been working on it for months, slowly building a collection of high-end furniture, decorations, appliances from various catalogs and various members of his extended, yet tight-knit family. You'd made an effort, and (shamefully) realized that you actually enjoyed preparing for this event. Even so, you made sure not to let on that a lot more Izzie than you realized had rubbed off on you.

You selected paint colors and themes, and made a point to have nothing overtly babyish - it was a sophisticated, yet subdued and calming space that you'd personally put together, something a normal person above the age of four would have no trouble staying in. It was a space your child could grow in to, a space you had, four years previous, never, ever, ever dreamed of even existing, let alone thinking about maybe considering possibly filling it with another human being.

The walls were a pale, pale shade of blue, that was truly white with the tiniest droplet of sky in it. There were intricate, beautiful wall hangings in the shape of scrolls and swirls that were painted a dark brown, and the wooden dresser, changing table, and crib were stained an according shade. The wide picture window that overlooked the outstanding view was flanked by silky curtains of the same dark chocolate brown, and a beautiful antique rocking chair that was as sturdy as it was a hundred years ago sat in front of it, untouched and unused, yet prepared for a continuation of its long and invaluable life.

A tall bookshelf (which was securely fastened to the floor, as was the rest of the furniture, for years of trouble sure to come) was filled with beautiful book upon beautiful book - first editions and leather-bound copies of childhood classics, like Beatrix Potter and Madeleine L'Engle, Winnie the Pooh and Alice In Wonderland, and even a complete set of the Narnia series you'd read religiously as a child yourself. On the lowest shelf were dark brown wicker baskets with linen linings, filled with stuffed elephants and monkeys and expensive, hand made teddy bears, all of which were gifts from friends and family eager to spoil this glorious child rotten.

This child that is coming, this tiny life is the sign that everyone you know has been waiting for, the sign that things _can_ be perfect, that they _can_ be wonderful, and that you are not simply doomed to a repeating cycle of happiness, then darkness, happiness, and darkness. It was sad to think you had belittled so greatly their confidence in you, but you accepted the burden of their anxiety and doubtfulness dutifully, as it was a thing of your own making. However, with the planning of this child, with the hopefulness for pregnancy and lack of the word "accident" when announcing it, they learned that you were, indeed, whole and healed.

And thus had begun the constant flow of gifts and heirlooms and helpful suggestions from a multitude of family members you'd only ever met at your wedding and who had suffered through countless child-bearing months of their own. There were discussions of names (you'd politely declined any family names, saying that you wanted your child to have their own identity), discussions of ailments you would suffer through and treatments for them, discussions of which baby food was the best and which company made the sturdiest cribs, and you would never admit, even to your own husband, that you enjoyed every moment of it. You didn't enjoy the fact that you were being harassed in all moments of the day so much as you enjoyed the fact that _this was it_ - this was the life you'd never wanted, the life you'd known so surely you'd never achieve, and that it was yours; it had been there for you to seize, and you had reached out, for the first time in your life, and taken it.

You sigh now, content, and rest your slightly cramped hand on your massive belly. You can hear your husband humming quietly one room over, washing paint brushes in the bath tub, as you have finally, _finally_, completed your work. You hear the faucet shut off, brush handles tapped on the side and propped up in a glass on the sink to dry, the soft, graceful padding of his feet into the room follow quickly behind. He stands in the doorway behind you, briefly, then comes to stand next to you as you survey your job proudly.

"It's gorgeous," he says quietly as he grasps your hand in his. You turn your head to look at him; the lines around his eyes are a little deeper than when you first met, his hair a little more grey, but he is still as beautiful as ever.

You turn back to the wide, swooping, and swirling words on the wall that took weeks for you to complete, your own hand obsessively fixating over every curve and contour, so that the two scripted words, which would inevitably remain there forever, would look as perfect as you had imagined.

The dark brown paint is still wet, but the message is clear.

_Be extraordinary._


End file.
